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Contributions include: Dell Olsen on Carla Harryman and Fiona Templeton cris cheek on the changing relationship of print and performance Peter Middleton on poetry readings and poetry as research in the work of Allen Fisher and Bruce Andrews Carla Harryman on the writing of ‘Performing Objects Stationed In Platform on the Sub (Urban) World’ Ian Davidson on Paul Green, Caroline Bergvall and the performed word Peter Riley on mass lyric Nathaniel Mackey on writerly poets and performance; and the recording of Strick Frances Presley on collaborations in cyberspace Caroline Bergvall on siting writing The first 100 copies of Additional Apparitions will include a specially commissioned West House Books supplement by Geraldine Monk: Insubstantial Thoughts On The Transubstantiation Of The Text - unique insights by one of the UK’s leading poets and performers into the passage of a text as it travels from the intimacy of the private reading to its various public vocalisations.
Flora Poetica brings together over 250 poems about flowers, plants and trees from eight centuries of writing in English. Fourteenth-century lyrics sit next to poems written in the year 2001; celebrations of plants native to the English soil, such as John Clare's beautiful poems about the 'common' plants of England, share the volume with more exotic plant poetry from places as far apart as Iran, New Zealand, South Africa and St Lucia. Sarah Maguire brings her botanical knowledge to bear on all the poems, arranging them into botanical families and identifying the plants being written about. Her imaginative flower arrangements create intriguing juxtapositions: the Juniper tree inspires both Aphra Behn and Tom Paulin; Allen Ginsberg remembers William Blake's poem about the sunflower. There are thirty poems about roses by poets as diverse as Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker and Seitlhamo Motsapi, taking us on a journey from revolution to love; but there are also sections devoted to more unusual plants such as the mandrake, the starapple and the gingko. In her introduction, Sarah Maguire considers how colonial expansion and the hunt for new plant species produced a burgeoning flora, not only in the gardens of the colonisers, but also in poetry written in English. From the seventeenth century onwards, the floral subject matter available to poets grew until, in the twentieth, ease of travel meant that poets could find inspiration in a vase of cut flowers flown half way round the globe. As a result, this anthology is unusual in including a large amount of modern poetry: Ted Hughes vents his spleen against rhododendrons; Kathleen Jamie invites a lover to 'whummel' in the bluebell woods; and Michael Longley chronicles the last remaining sites of the ghost orchid. Meanwhile, poets from the former colonies assert their national identity by writing poems about their native plants: Les Murray praises the eucalyptus of Australia and Lorna Goodison traces the history of the Jamaican people in a tamarind tree. SARAH MAGUIRE's two volumes of poetry, Spilt Milk and The Invisible Mender, have brought her a great deal of acclaim. Having left school early, she trained as a gardener, and much of her own poetry has been concerned with gardens and plants. Formerly poet in residence at the Chelsea Physic Garden, she is currently the Writing Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies. A volume of Sarah Maguire's poetry, The Florist's at Midnight, has been published by Cape to coincide with Flora Poetica. (Read a review of The Florist's at Midnight by Alison Rowsell) OBITUARY: ANDREW WATERHOUSE (1958-2001) The death of the poet Andrew Waterhouse at the age of 42 has come as a great shock to his family and loved ones, as well as to his many friends and admirers. He was active in several distinct worlds and will be mourned not only in the literary community in and beyond the North of England where he made his home, but also in the spheres of music and environmentalism. Waterhouse grew up in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. He turned down a place at Cambridge in order to study at Newcastle University, later taking an MSc in Environmental Science at Wye College, as well as obtaining a teaching qualification. For many years he lectured at Kirkley Hall Agricultural College, near Morpeth. A passionate environmentalist, he wrote for Green journals and was a participant in the Trees for Life programme for world reforestation. In 1998 he bought a 10-acre site near Longframlington, where he began planting a wood. He was also an accomplished fiddler and percussionist, he played in a number of lineups ranging from ceilidh bands to pop groups, as well as the experimental Orfeo and, most recently, 39 Casualties. He was in the first cohort of the Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University in 1996, passing with distinction and winning awards as well as the affectionate admiration of his tutors and fellow students, to whom his seriousness and personal kindness seemed exemplary. It was characteristic that when the course ended he arranged for its members to go on meeting in order to exchange work and mutual encouragement. Waterhouse's book In won the Forward prize for best first collection in 2000. He had given up lecturing to write full time and was about to take up a post as writer in residence at Northumbria University, as well as being involved in a variety of other writing projects - all of which suggested a future full of promise. In the North East he was a popular figure of whom much was expected, and his reputation was beginning to grow nationally. His earliest known poem dates from 1978 and was written during a stay on a kibbutz, but not until the mid-1990s did he publicly acknowledge his vocation. Whilst he published in magazines and received a number of awards for his work, it was not easy for him to find a publisher for his book, perhaps in part because his ambition was directed at his work rather than personal acclaim. Fortunately Michael Mackmin, editor of the magazine and small press The Rialto, had spotted Waterhouse's poem 'Comets', and remembers thinking: 'Here's somebody who really knows what poetry is.' Waterhouse's poetry
reveals an absolute artistic seriousness and
perfectionism, as well as a sense that the work must
frame a judgement on its maker. His imagination is both
vivid and uncluttered. In 'Another Poem About the End of
the World', he sees that 'In a black case/ my favourite
red butterfly is drinking its own wings, becomes molten.'
What gives his apocalyptic narrative episodes their force
is partly the inexorable patience with which hope and
life are extinguished. A central paradox is that the
poems cry out for belief but are unable to sustain it.
The world Waterhouse imagines is full of solid objects
and hard edges - stones, wood, frozen ground - which
offers little purchase to its inhabitants. These may be
familiar problems of modernity, but both the strength and
the affliction of Waterhouse's work arise from an
inability to domesticate solitude and self-doubt through
the daily grind. His world, as it were, has nothing Waterhouse suffered from depression and had withdrawn from a number of professional engagements of late, citing ill-health. Although some of his many friends may have known about his problems, his privacy, his generosity and impish humour disguised the intensity of his suffering - as witness the widespread shock at the news of his death. He is survived by his parents, his brother and his partner. Andrew Waterhouse, poet, born 27th November 1958, died 20th October 2001. Sean O'Brien Return to top |
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